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Updated: May 11, 2025
The first thing Jerome did, when he reached home, was to brush and blacken his shoes, though there was no chance of Lucina's seeing them. He felt as if he ought not to think of her when he had on dusty shoes. The greater part of the next day Jerome passed, as usual, soling shoes in Ozias Lamb's shop. When he came home to supper, he noticed something unusual about his mother and sister.
"You'd better not worry till you know you've got something to worry about; likely as not, they asked him to go with them 'cause Lucina's beau don't know how to ride very well, and he couldn't help it," she said, with a curious aside of speech, as if Jerome, though on the stage, was not to hear. He took no notice, but that night he had a word with his sister after their mother had gone to bed.
It tried Jerome sorely to capture Lucina's men and bar her out from the king-row, and she sometimes chid him for careless playing. Sometimes, after Jerome was gone and Lucina in bed, Abigail Merritt, who had always a kind but furtively keen eye upon the two young people, talked a little anxiously to the Squire.
Looking now at this daughter of hers, with her exceeding beauty and delicacy, which a touch would seem to profane and soil as much as that of a flower or butterfly, she had an impulse to hide her away and cover her always from the sight and handling of all except maternal love. She took much comfort in the surety that there was as yet no definite lover in Lucina's horizon.
Lucina's guests spent Thanksgiving with her. Jerome saw them twice, riding horseback with Lawrence Prescott Lucina on her little white horse, Miss Soley on Lawrence's black, the strange young man on the Squire's sorrel, and Lawrence on a gray.
"Belinda Lamb has been here," she said, "and that young man is that Boston girl's beau; he ain't Lucina's, and Lawrence Prescott ain't nothing to do with it. He was up there last night, but it wa'n't anything. Why, Jerome Edwards, you look as pale as death!" Jerome muttered some unintelligible response, and went out of the room, with his mother staring after him.
In all probability, Lucina's heart had turned already to Lawrence Prescott, as was fitting. She had doubtless seen much of him he was handsome and prosperous; both families would be pleased with such a match. Jerome faced firmly the jealousy in his heart. "You've got to get used to it," he told himself.
More especially because he did not want Juno Lucina's nerves to be upset at a critical moment, and that was exactly what might happen if the revelation were delayed too long. If she were told now, and disabled by the shock, there would at least be time to make sure of a capable substitute. However, he must be guided by his prognosis on arriving at Costrell's.
Lucina's white muslin fluttered around Jerome's knees, her curls floated across his breast. "Oh," murmured Lucina, confusedly, "this wind has come all of a sudden," and she stood apart from him. "You will take cold; we had better go in," said Jerome.
Squire Eben Merritt, his wife, his sister Miss Camilla, and his daughter Lucina, were all on their way to afternoon meeting. The Squire was with them that day, leaving heroically his trout-pools and his fishing-fields; for was it not his pretty Lucina's second Sunday only at home, and was he not as eager to be with her as any lover?
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